There are two kinds of anxiety. You can have common anxiety, that sensation you get when you’re involved with a crisis. And then you can have the type of anxiety that isn’t really connected to any one worry or event. Regardless of what’s happening in their lives or what they’re thinking about, they frequently feel anxiety. It’s just present in the background all through the day. This type of anxiety is usually more of a mental health issue than a neurological reaction.
Both types of anxiety can be very detrimental to the physical body. It can be particularly damaging if you feel extended or chronic anxiety. When it feels anxiety, your body releases all kinds of chemicals that raise your alert status. It’s a good thing in the short term, but harmful over a long period of time. Over the long run, anxiety that cannot be dealt with or brought under control will start to manifest in certain physical symptoms.
Anxiety Has Distinct Bodily Symptoms
Some symptoms of anxiety are:
- Tiredness
- Bodily pain
- Feeling agitated or irritated
- Queasiness
- Depression and loss of interest in day to day activities
- Fear about approaching disaster
- Panic attacks, shortness of breath and increased heart rate
But in some cases, anxiety is experienced in unexpected ways. Anxiety can even impact obscure body functions such as your hearing. For example, anxiety has been linked to:
- Tinnitus: Are you aware that stress not only exacerbates the ringing in your ears but that it can also be responsible for the onset of that ringing. This is known as tinnitus (which, itself can have many other causes too). For a few, this might even manifest itself as a feeling of blockage or clogging of the ears.
- High Blood Pressure: And then there are a few ways that anxiety impacts your body in precisely the way you’d expect it to. Elevated blood pressure is one of those. Known scientifically as hypertension, high blood pressure can have very adverse effects on the body. It is, to make use of a colloquialism, bad news. High blood pressure has also been recognized to lead to hearing loss, dizziness and tinnitus.
- Dizziness: Chronic anxiety can sometimes cause dizziness, which is a condition that may also be related to the ears. Keep in mind, the sense of balance is governed by the ears (there are these three tubes inside of your inner ears which are controlling the sense of balance).
Hearing Loss And Anxiety
Typically on a hearing blog like this we would normally focus on, well, hearing. And your how well to hear. So let’s talk a bit about how your hearing is impacted by anxiety.
The isolation is the primary issue. When a person has tinnitus, hearing loss or even balance issues, they tend to pull away from social contact. You may have seen this in your own relatives. Maybe a relative just withdrew from conversations because they were embarrassed that they have to constantly repeat themselves. The same holds true for balance issues. It may influence your ability to walk or drive, which can be embarrassing to admit to family and friends.
Social isolation is also linked to anxiety and depression in other ways. When you do not feel yourself, you don’t want to be around other people. Unfortunately, this can be something of a circle where one feeds the other. That feeling of solitude can develop quickly and it can lead to a host of other, closely related problems, such as decline of cognitive function. For someone who suffers from anxiety and hearing loss, battling against that move toward isolation can be even more challenging.
Finding The Correct Treatment
Tinnitus, hearing loss, anxiety and isolation can all feed each other. That’s why finding the proper treatment is so important.
If hearing loss and tinnitus are symptoms you’re struggling with, obtaining correct treatment for them can also assist with your other symptoms. And in terms of depression and anxiety, connecting with others who can relate can be very helpful. Chronic anxiety is more severe when there is a strong sense of solitude and dealing with the symptoms can help with that. In order to figure out what treatments will be most effective for your situation, consult your doctor and your hearing specialist. Depending on the results of your hearing test, the right treatment for hearing loss or tinnitus might be hearing aids. And for anxiety, medication and other kinds of therapy could be necessary. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has also been demonstrated to help deal with tinnitus.
Here’s to Your Health
We recognize that your mental and physical health can be severely impacted by anxiety.
Isolation and cognitive decline have also been recognized as a consequence of hearing loss. When you add anxiety to the recipe, you can have a very difficult situation. Fortunately, a positive difference can be achieved by getting the correct treatment for both conditions. Anxiety doesn’t need to have long lasting effects on your body and the impact of anxiety on your body can be counteracted. The sooner you get treatment, the better.
